The Worst Rally Job Ever! Potty Training 2014

Dear Baby Waider+ Little Bother Too,

My Grandma Hafner (Baby Waider's namesake) always used to say that the summer was downhill after the Fourth of July. Truer words were never spoken. Today when I went into town it became abundantly clear that the arrival of the Sturgis Rally is eminent. Bikes all over.  I also realized that besides holidays the Rally is my most blogged about topic. As I've also mentioned I have a love/hate relationship with the Rally. Previous posts address this. There is something so mystical and a little exhilarating about living in a place where 500,000 people convene to ride motorcycles. Part of me feels a twinge of excitement that quickly dissipates the first time I have to drive with a bunch of bikes whizzing around me. Anyway today as I was scanning Facebook one of my friends posted that they were looking for a waitress who needed a rally job. Now I can't lie. After the past three days I'd had a rally job of any kind sounded pretty awesome. 

See rally jobs are something else. I remember mentally preparing for weeks to psych myself up for rally jobs. When waitressing it meant something like 10 days straight on your feet. Selling t shirts meant 10 days straight of boredom and eating really bad food. Working at the campground meant I had to stay up all night long. And clean bathrooms. I've done some rally jobs in my day. Mostly they start out with excitement and hope of making good money. They end knowing that you are so tired the money wasn't worth it and also that you will probably do it again next year. Add that you are dealing with people getting little sleep and mostly sleeping in the ground. A good amount of mental preparation goes into a rally job. You have to get psyched up. 

Back to the last three days. I THOUGHT we were out of diapers. Baby Waider had been asking me to change her pants for several weeks. All signs pointed towards potty training. Potty training is a funny thing. Last year when I looked like I had swallowed a watermelon and dad was recuperating from his broken ankle people would ask me disdainfully, "Oh? She isn't potty trained?" They would look at my stomach and then look at me like they were paying for our  diapers. I didn't take it too seriously because much of what I read pointed to waiting. Baby Waider had some interest but what I read said to do a "launch" or "boot camp." So I decided to wait until we felt ready. This past weekend we decided to give it a whirl. Saturday night we read some mommy blogs, sent dad to Walmart for some spoils and were all in Sunday morning. We had candy, cars, monster trucks, dinosaurs, bubbles, colors, you name it we had it as a potty prize. Dad also came home with a variety of underwear. Baby Waider chose Hello Kitty, Minions, and Avengers. We followed our boot camp and things seemed to be okay. But then the accidents started. And they are messy. Because Baby Waider is very keen she quickly figured out that we just wanted her to be on the toilet so badly she started making demands. "I want juice on the potty, I want crunchies on the potty, Can I have popcorn? I want to watch the Bubble Guppies!  It quickly became a slippery slope. Before I knew it we were running back and forth waiting on Baby Waider hand and foot just to keep her on the toilet in hopes that something would go into the toilet. Naturally, Baby Waider went potty in the potty! We were all ecstatic. Baby Waider was then allowed to choose a prize of her choice. A Monster Truck. At $3.50 a pop we learned that this was not going to be cheap. We didn't care. Let's do this potty training!

Please note: not all of these trucks are potty prizes. Spoiled? Perhaps. You can judge it's okay. I've done plenty of judging in my day. While you are judging you can also judge the fact that I've been home all summer and my house is STILL messy. And my child STILL isn't potty trained. But my kids both look pretty happy and we have a billion pictures proving we've had a blast this summer. :) 

What do you do with Benny? He's just so cute. 

Yes, that's me. With an iPad, and she's eating crunchies. OMG. I'm such a pushover. Desperation people. I did this out of desperation to get her on the toilet. 

Things went okay for the next twenty four hours. Actually day two wasn't too bad. Many monster trucks were handed out. I would say that I didn't wake up dreading day 3 when I probably should have. Day 3 started out with promise. Immediately Baby Waider woke up and headed to the potty. Baby Waider didn't go until she got off of the potty...A trend which continued all morning long. It was when we walked into her room to notice Little Brother looking in disgust as he was splashing in pee with his legos, as Baby Waider said, "Dad! I peed!"  YUCK. Oh, and side not. Three sleeves of diapers were discovered in the closet.  Something triggered in mom and dad. We were done. This was over. So, dad loaded the legos into the dishwasher, we threw the kids into the tub and decided after nap potty training was over. Which was a good decision. Baby Waider cried when we asked if she wanted diapers or underwear. She screamed "I JUST WANT TO WEAR DIAPERS AND PLAY!!!" She doesn't cry often and she was hysterical.

So the Pinterest articles about potty training in three days were a Pinterest FAIL. Yesterday afternoon in a my desperation I took Mia for a walk. In some ways I felt relief...Potty training was over...for now. But the words of my wise friend Alicia were being repeated over and over in my head. "Kids don't go to college in diapers." Which means this ISN'T over. I will eventually have to teach this child to go to the bathroom in the toilet. She can't wear diapers forever. Which got me thinking...Maybe I can barter... Maybe I can go and work a Rally job and someone can come and train my child for me. Like live with my family and potty train Baby Waider? I've done Rally jobs and they don't even come close to this... Then Mia looked at me like was crazy, which she does A LOT lately. I wonder if I said this plan out loud? Anyway... I shook out of it and realized that although I can't go work a rally job, I'm going to have to DIG DEEP for this job. Just like its a rally job. Get psyched up. We can do it and who will be prouder of Baby Waider when she learns this than her mother? I can do it! Plus, just like a rally job, I am going to hate it by the time it's over, and I get to do it again next year! ;) Hopefully Little Brother is a little less stubborn than his sister. Without a doubt potty training will be my worst rally job ever. ;(

The teacher in me feels like I SHOULD be able to teach this to my child. So on top of feeling like we failed I also feel like failure should not be an option. I teaching children to READ! ADD! SUBTRACT! These skills don't come easy. So the lesson here is that sometimes you need to know when to take a break and come back to something. Everyone learns in their own time. Baby Waider will learn. It will just be on her terms and in her time. I read a blog with eyes filled with tears about a mom who feels like we are raising a generation who can't handle anything because we let kids rule everything. I sort of feel like that mom would not have ended potty training over legos with pee on them, but I also feel like another friend, Sara said it best. There are three things you can't force toddlers to do, eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom in the toilet. That thought overruled my guilt from the hard core potty training mom's site. Oh, she also said that no baby after 8 months should have a pacifier. She'd also be pretty judgy on me for that too.... Oh but the next training rodeo will be much different. Like no eating on the toilet. Or watching the iPad. Or playing monster trucks. Sit down. Potty. Get out.

Until next time know that we have had an amazing summer up until this point. This time wasn't an entire bust either. Spending three days at home had some benefits, like watching movies together, watching Monster Jam, and playing games. Surely there will be an update to this.

Love,

MAMA

P.S. No one in the house is happier than Mia that this ordeal is on pause. The bathroom is HER room in the summer and Eleanor's constant presence trying to go potty has totally cramped her style. I don't know that Mia realizes that for now her bathroom sharing is limited, but soon 4 people will be sharing this room with her.